


Sun Will Rise

by Kicker



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Sexual Content, Smoking, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 16:20:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8334244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kicker/pseuds/Kicker
Summary: It's five months since Corinna was released from the Vault, almost to the day. And it's a special day, by some definitions of the word. She's not particularly inclined to celebrate it but when a friendly and honest face shows up... well.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Named after and partly built around this song: [Sun Will Rise ](https://open.spotify.com/track/62l9bITRa8DPtfcQgyuNRb).
> 
> Also from Corinna's experience in Covenant: [part 1](http://kickerwrites.tumblr.com/post/151988237187/corinna-in-covenant-part-1-corinna-had-gone-past) and [part 2](http://kickerwrites.tumblr.com/post/152034182044/corinna-in-covenant-part-2-having-been)
> 
> consider this a prequel to [Red Flags and Flight Suits](http://archiveofourown.org/series/396475)

It's right there on her Pip-Boy, bright green lettering on a screen that's looking no less dusty than the first day she picked it up. March 22nd, 2288.

Thirty years old today.

Technically two hundred forty but she's not entirely sure the frozen years counted; so she may have already gotten the big three-zero out of the way, blissfully unaware. Either way at least in and out were on the same day of the year so she doesn't have to worry about any of that kind of math. Definitely thirty.

Maybe.

She's sitting at Savoldi's bar in Bunker Hill with Dogmeat panting happily by her side. She's supposed to be there to sweet-talk a few caravaneers into extending their routes out to Starlight, get that whole trading network set up. But she hasn't talked to any of them so far. She did go into the market, and... well, that's about it. One of the names rang a bell but she couldn't quite recall why. Stockton. He asked about a geiger counter; she showed him her Pip-Boy, not that she would have parted with it or bought whatever he might have been offering as a replacement, too much shit recorded on it by now. He just let out a little sigh and showed her his stock list, none of which was particularly of interest to a Corinna who by that point was mostly in search of whisky.

At least she found some of that.

She catches the older Savoldi's eye and taps her glass. Back before the war she always wanted to do the cowboy movie thing, toss a handful of coins on the counter and snarl _leave the bottle_ , but even though those troublesome city ordinances are gone she's supposed to be saving her caps to invest in some shit or other so she still can't do that. And she doesn't even want to drink that much, the thought of waking up hungover in the tiny room she’s rented above the bar enough to make her think twice about the idea. But she can probably handle one more. Maybe two.

You don't turn thirty every day, after all.

She heaves a sigh that's loud enough to make Dogmeat whine and poke his nose into her knee to check on her.

"You okay, boy?" she asks. "You need some water?"

But he just bares those sharp teeth and sneezes at her so she guesses he's fine. She scruffs the back of his neck and sits back up, and apparently in the intervening moments the seat next to her has become occupied, some big guy with long dirty-blonde hair and a fine profile. He kind of reminds her of someone but maybe that's just wishful thinking so she returns her attention to her drink.

She doesn't have anything else to do so she just sits and notes the way he greets the bartender and orders himself a beer and some food. There is something in the way he says it, Savoldi, stout, snack, all of them with a slight lisp and a rasp in his throat that really _is_ reminiscent of someone. So she sneaks another glance and finds he's had the same idea because he’s looking right back. And then it comes to her. Covenant. Cigarettes shared in a settlement that always seemed too good to be true, a mystery solved outside of it, and a full-on fucking war fought with its occupants after. A bond forged in ashes and blood, you might say, which is not the most favorable of omens but there's a smile creeping onto her face unbidden and that alone tells her she should greet him.

"Dan," she says. "Keeping honest?"

Then there's a moment where he narrows his eyes and she wonders if she'll have to pass it off as mistaken identity, but then he smiles back, if a little awkwardly.

"I'm bad with names," he says. "But I do remember you. Covenant, right? Bad business, that."

"Yeah," she says. “Yeah. And it's Corinna. Corinna May.”

He nods, and his eyes pass over her face a couple times. "From Starlight?”

She nods. "You remember some things, then."

“People change all the time," he says, with an apologetic shrug. "But places help you get around. Navigation. How's that place going? Last I heard it was two traders and a brahmin."

She laughs. "It'd be coming along a lot faster if I were actually doing my job here. But, it's doing okay. Four traders on a regular basis and two brahmin, now. One of them's called Betsy but I’m not sure about the other, it’s a bit... bitey. You know."

He laughs back and shoves a couple of snack cakes into his face, washing them down with the beer like they’re the first thing he’s eaten in days.

Corinna's not entirely sure of the last time she ate. She checks her glass for wisdom but it's empty already.

"What's the occasion?" he asks, with a nod at the glass.

She hesitates, but it's not like it really makes a difference. Not now.

"It's my birthday," she says.

"Oh," he says. "Kinda hard to keep track of those for most. But I guess you got that."

He inclines his head at her wrist, rested on the counter next to her empty glass because that damn Pip-Boy is heavy as shit but she still can't bring herself to take it off until she knows she's safe.

"Oh, this old thing?" she asks. "I suppose it does put me at something of an advantage. In some ways."

"Where'd you get it?"

"A vault," she says. "Up north."

She doesn't elaborate but he doesn't question her further, either. He just raises his eyebrows and goes on eating.

He had to have noticed it before, in Covenant, but it wasn't like there had been much time to exchange pleasantries, to really talk. She'd been dragged into his problem, helped him solve it for a bunch of meaningless bottlecaps and then with the stench of copper and discharged laser fire strong in the air they'd said their goodbyes.

Not the first or probably last time that would happen to her in the Commonwealth.

But they've got enough in common, two mercenaries in the wasteland after all, and there was enough left unspoken in the moments before it all went to shit that she doesn't feel it necessary to huddle over that empty glass or scurry away from the bar. He asks her about the north and she asks him about the south, and neither of them really answer, not really, but there's a silent understanding as to why and it's kind of... comfortable.

After a little while she excuses herself, _gotta powder my nose, be right back,_ not that anyone quite understands that these days and as she passes him, she touches him for the first time. It's through the thick layer of reinforced leather armor on his shoulder so he probably can't even feel it but it's a touch nonetheless, one that makes his head turn to look at her fingers and then up at her, and probably to turn around and watch her as she walks away, as elegantly as she can manage in worn tennis shoes on dead grass and beaten dirt.

But it'll work. Of course it will.

It always does.

When she returns she rests her elbow on the bar and her chin on her hand and watches him talk. He's got a particular way of raising his left eyebrow, the one with the scar over it, particularly when he says something that might be misconstrued or perhaps that he wants to be misconstrued. They're only talking about profit margins but he raises that eyebrow when he says the words _helps me rest easy in my bed_ and glances over at her, and by that point she knows what he's thinking because she's thinking it too.

 _Maybe I can help you with that_.

He smokes more than she does which is saying something, and he keeps his cigarettes to himself now, putting away the packet as soon as he's got the next one out. She doesn't even get a chance to offer him one of hers he's got a new one lit so fast after the last. But when she eventually gets one out he does present his lighter, precious as lighter fuel is these days, so she does get to draw his attention to her mouth as she closes her lips around the cigarette.

Which, again, always works.

It's rained for eight out of the previous ten days so it's not surprising when a sudden flurry of raindrops starts to batter the tin roof above them. The wind is blowing it right into the frontage of the bar and probably through the gaping holes in the walls of that little room above it so when he gives her The Look and suggests an alternate venue it's a no-brainer.

"Thought you'd never ask," she says.

  
He leads her... no, he doesn't lead her. He walks beside her, just as they did out of Covenant toward the Compound and back the other way, and he points the way with a pair of fingers with a cigarette still caught between them. It's just opposite Savoldi's place, on the other side of the old visitor center, a basic shack with most of the gaps between the boards patched up with either sheets of metal or fabric tacked into the wooden frame.

Inside, she pauses for a quick look around. Sparse furniture, a mattress right on the floor but at least there's a patchwork layer of wooden boarding over the dirt to keep it dry-ish and level. Better than most she's seen so far.

"Nice place," she says.

"It's not mine," he says, and there's a curious tone to his voice that she doesn't quite know how to interpret. "Just somewhere we, uh. I can crash when I need it."

She unclips the Pip-Boy and tosses it onto a faded leather chair that looks like it was pulled right out of the visitor center. She takes off her jacket too, throws that over the arm of the same chair. It's not warm enough to do so, not by any stretch of the imagination, but at least it's not like it used to be at this time of year with snow still on the ground and the smell of salt and ozone everywhere.

Now she's done that the only other comfortable place to sit is the bed and that's moving a little too fast even for her. But there is a table with a single foldout chair pushed under it, so she goes to lean back against it, elbows locked, feet crossed over each other, watching.

He shuts the door but doesn't lock it, dropping his pack in front of it instead. He reaches into the pack to pull out a half-empty bottle of something, and comes to place it on the table next to her. He doesn't open it, doesn't look for glasses or mugs or anything like that, he just stands with his boot just brushing against the side of her shoe.

"Before, uh, anything," he says, not meeting her eyes. "You should know I could be gone tomorrow. I don't have a job lined up, but..."

He has a code, she already knew that. But so does she. And at least she doesn't have to mince her words now.

"I know," she replies, reaching up to stroke fingers up his neck, just brushing a thumb over his deeply-stubbled jaw. "I will be gone tomorrow. And I don't know how long I'll last after that, you know?"

"I've seen you fight," he says, moving to stand in front of her, his hand just making contact with her hip. "You'll be fine."

And that threatens to take her back to a place she doesn't want to go, of angry faces that once wore smiles, fake as they were. And she still wasn't sure she was on the right side of the line, or that she'd made the decision for the right reasons. One person, for a dozen?

But now's not the time for that.

"Just kiss me already," she says, and he does, his nose pressing against hers, his lips smokier than she'd even imagined them. His fingertips just drift under the filthy t-shirt she's been wearing for too many days and he presses his hips against hers, the table rocking on the floor but holding steady.

He helps her out of that shirt and she helps him out of his armor, all buckles and pads and belts and she laughs because it reminds her of that time she picked up a hockey player in full kit and had to try to get him out of it. When he draws back and raises his eyebrow she realises that's far too long of a story to tell, so she unbuttons his pants and slides her hand inside them instead.

It doesn't take long before he's bearing her over to the bed, the mattress, whatever you want to call it, stripping the rest of her clothes and his. The sex is good and rough and everything she hadn't even realised she needed, and she throws herself into it with an abandon that she can tell he likes because who wouldn't.

  
The next morning she wakes up first, for once, and for a little while she pretends that the sick feeling in her stomach is a hangover and not guilt. But it is. Nate's gone, she knows that, but it still feels like she's in another man's bed and that's just not the way she is.

At the same time... if she closes her eyes she can almost pretend that she's home in her own bed with that warm, solid presence at her side that she'd just let herself begin to believe would be there forever. But she can't close her ears. That slight rasp in his breath from all the cigarettes, the jangling of a neighboring shack's windchimes, the not-so-distant shouts of the caravan leaders as they set off into the morning sun.

And she can't help but think it.

_Nate wouldn't be like this. He'd have found Shaun already, he'd have set the Commonwealth to rights. He'd have built Starlight out to rival Diamond City by now, safe and protected and full of friends. Not a half-built mess of leaky shacks and sullen traders still waiting for the place to be blown to bits by a mutant attack._

_It should never have been you walking out of the Vault._

_What the fuck are you doing, Corinna?_

But before she can go down that desolate path again the man who is beside her stirs. She slows her breathing and closes her eyes for long enough to open them again in a pretence of waking. It's not convincing, or at least it certainly doesn't feel it, but it seems to be enough for him.

"Good morning," he says, and leans in and he still tastes of cigarettes and whisky and that's definitely different enough to keep her in the present. After a few hesitant and then some less hesitant kisses he starts to push himself down, those kisses pressing over her chest, over her stomach, accompanied by hands and fingernails that scratch over her skin and make her shiver, not to mention those first tentative touches of his tongue.

Now, if she closed her eyes and tried really hard, she _could_ probably pretend it was him.

No.

_No._

"Come back here," she says, with some difficulty, fingers barely reaching to curl behind his ear. "I want to see you. I need to see you."

He ignores her for a moment and she's almost prepared to accept it because it feels _so good_ but then he stops and grins up at her, brushing his hair behind his ear, his eyes so dark and blue and _different_ that she can't stop looking at them. Then he makes his way back up and stops again, poised above her like a lion, his skin golden in the hazy light that's making its way in through the scrappy walls of the shack.

There are no sheets in which to bunch her fingers and the pillow's made of straw and sackcloth so she grabs for him instead, pulls him in closer, harder, kneads her fingers into his flesh and pushes herself against him as much as she can. And for his part it doesn't matter what he's doing because he says her name, and that's what she needs, to know that she still exists, that she still matters if only for this one moment with this one person.

The world ends for her, in a moment of pure bliss.

  
And then it starts again.

They share a few moments of comfortable intimacy with legs and arms and everything intertwined, but the caravans get louder, the brahmin snort more enthusiastically, and then there's a few barks that can only come from Dogmeat.

So Corinna sits up and rubs her eyes, and before Dan can speak she gets up and collects her clothes from around the floor and pulls them on, trying to ignore the damp that's soaked into them during the night. She opens her pack and straps on the leg armor she'd discarded soon after arriving in Bunker Hill.

"You really are going then," he says, stepping up beside her and resting a hand on her shoulder.

He's pulled on his pants and nothing else, and looking up at him she does feel a thrill of regret. But the days of lounging in bed with a new lover, whether that bed's hers or someone else's, they're gone. She knows that.

"Yeah," she says. "With a heavy heart, I can assure you."

  
Outside the shack, Dogmeat trots up to her, tail wagging. She scruffs his ears, and wonders for a moment where he actually spent the night. But he seems happy enough so she doesn't think too much on it. She already knows what she has to do, after all. She needs to talk to Kessler, to see if she can use that radio she mentioned. It might not reach quite as far as Sanctuary but there must be a settlement with a radio in between the two that can pass on a message.

A message from General May to her second-in-command, Preston Garvey.

It's time to take back the Castle.


End file.
